The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has come out with a new series of national accounts with 2011-12 as base year for computing economic growth rate. The economic growth rate revised upwards to 6.9%Â for 2013-14, as against 4.7% estimated earlier, after the government updated the base year for measuring national accounts. (Previously the GDP was computed on 2004-05 base year).
The base year was last revised in January 2010 and goes under revision every five years. Similarly, the economic growth rate for 2012-13 has been revised upwards to 5.1% from earlier estimate of 4.5%. The previous estimates had put economic growth rate at sub-5% level for the past two years.
What is a Base Year?Â
A base year or reference year is the year used for comparison for the level of a particular economic index. The arbitrary level of 100 is selected so that percentage changes (either rising or falling) can be easily depicted.
For example, to find GDP or Inflation or Poverty between 2005 and 2010, one would make calculations using 2005 as the base year, or the first year in the time set.
